The Institute’s scientific advisory council consists of 25 reputable scholars,[1] all of whom gained recognition in the field through media and communication policy-related publications.

The institute has been established as a non-profit, limited liability company (gGmbH) operates independently, and has no political, party, or economic ties.

Among the speakers were guests such as: Greg Dyke (British Film Institute), Alan Rusbridger (Chief Editor of The Guardian), Norman Pearlstine (chief content officer of Bloomberg L.P.), Tyler Brûlé (founder of the Wallpaper* magazine), Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Georg Mascolo (Chief Editors of Der Spiegel), Ernst Uhrlau (President of the German Intelligence Service), Viviane Reding (EU-commissioner for information society and media), David Weinberger (fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School), and technology scholars Evgeny Morozov and Geert Lovink.

The IfM was elected one of the most important non-university institutes of media research within the framework of the programme “Germany thinks”,[5] an initiative of the Goethe-Institut.

Richard Barbrook, Nick Bostrom, George Dyson, Kevin Kelly, Kathrin Passig and Tim Wu and other experts in the field gave talks on these topics.